• Dictagloss Activity for ‘Melissa Crawford’
text 1
1: Melissa was an abnormally large baby because her mother was diabetic.
2: Diabetes is a chronic disease, caused by the body’s inability to remove sugar from the blood. It is very common.
3: Diabetics have abnormally high amounts of sugar in their blood, and, as a result, they often become blind or suffer from kidney failure.
text 2
1: When Melisssa’s parents found out what had happened to Melissa, they felt that the doctors were responsible for the catastrophe.
2: The doctors who delivered Melissa had been looking after her mother while she was pregnant.
3: Jeanette and her husband felt that if the doctors had done their job properly, they would have had a normal, healthy daughter.
possible teaching points
1: the prefix ‘ab’ (means ‘away from’ [compare: ‘absent’ (‘esse’), ‘abortion’ (‘oriri’), abstain’ (‘tenere’)]
2: diabetic (adjective form of (‘diabetes’) [note pronunciation change of stressed vowel])
3: chronic (pronunciation: (Greek: ‘ch’=[k]); etymology: (‘chronology’ ‘synchronize’))
4: inability (alternative to ‘un’) [compare:‘inaction,’ ‘insane’]
5: failure (compare: ‘fail examination’)
6: responsible for (adjective/preposition combination)
7: catastrophe (pronunciation: final [i]; etymology: ‘down’ + ‘turn’)
8: if the doctors...healthy daughter (unreal past conditional)